


maybe this world is made for you

by orphan_account



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Body Horror, Cannibalism, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Maybe The Horror fancies Five, Tentacles, Time Travel Fix-It, or at least likes touching him with tentacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:14:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22304752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “The problem with darling brother Ben is that he eats people.”
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Ben Hargreeves
Comments: 7
Kudos: 185





	maybe this world is made for you

**Author's Note:**

> They arrive, they post a fic, they vanish again. 
> 
> An unbeta'd, pseudo kinky, tentacley mess, enjoy.

Five crash lands back at the academy two months after he left, he looks around the room, bright in the early evening sun, watches as Luther hands Allison a twenty dollar bill (he wonders if they bet on when or if he’d come back) and quickly counts his siblings. There’s five of them. Like there has been since he came back the first time. Only five. The ball of excitement that had been building in him since he left for the return trip dies instantly. ‘It didn’t work’ he mummers, ‘I thought it would work, I thought I had it all worked out…’ If he was the sort of person who cried he thinks that this would be the time he would start bawling. As it is he swallows the lump in his throat, grabs a bottle of Whatever Is Closest To Hand, and walks, defeated, to his room. No one follows him. They’re all probably as disappointed in him as he is in himself. He was so sure of himself, and so smug in his certainty. He can’t believe he let them all down, especially with something as important as this.

Half way through the bottle, and having sufficiently drowned his self-pity, he goes to find Klaus. He’s on his bed, or rather floating an inch above his bed, legs crossed, reading Vogue. If Five was in a better mood he’d note happily how Klaus’ grasp on his powers has improved, even in his brief absence. Instead he says mournfully, ‘tell Ben I’m sorry’.

Klaus lands back on the bed with a soft thump.

“Do what now?”

“Tell him I’m sorry, I thought it would work, I was _sure_ it would work”

“I have no idea what you’re on about, also why the hell should I tell Ben anything?”

Five looks at him, confused.

“You speak to him the most, I thought you could tell him how sorry I was.”

Klaus laughs, it’s a surprised burst of noise that causes him to briefly rise back above the bed.

“Five, I haven’t spoken to that little psycho in years!”

*

Five’s made them all gather in Luther’s room, after grabbing Klaus and dragging him out of his room and knocking on each door he passed he has all five of his siblings, in various stages of annoyance, looking at him like they hope the disruption was worth it.

“Tell me about Ben”

They bristle, he feels like this is perhaps a subject that is purposefully avoided.

“Look, let’s pretend that during the time I was away, something happened and I forgot about Ben, about everything I missed growing up, what are the headlines?”

There’s an awkward silence that drags until Luther says “the less you know about Number Six the better”.

For Five, that’s not an acceptable answer (also when has anyone referred to Ben by his number). He thinks out of all of them Luther’s the one who most often looks at Five, sees a teenager, and takes it at face value. It makes Five want to punch him. He might have actually punched him but then Vanya says

“Luther that’s not fair. Ben – Uh – It got bad, he …” she trails off and looks pleadingly over at the others, fixing on Klaus.

He shrugs, “Hey, I like him! He’s a freak but I like him.”

Diego scoffs, he looks like he’s about to interrupt but Klaus cuts him off.

“The problem with darling brother Ben is that he eats people.”

*

The story goes that after Five left the others continued building on their powers, going on missions that were more frequent, more dangerous, required more from them than they’d previously been able to give and one day Ben just snapped.

Five can almost feel the anger coming off Luther and Diego as they tell him.

“He put all of us at risk.”

“He didn’t even care it was us.”

“I still can’t believe we just let him walk away.”

“Instead of what?” Vanya snaps at them, “putting him down like some kind of animal?”

“It’s what he deserved” Diego practically spits.

“Figures, that’s what you tried to do to me too”.

She storms out and moments later Five hears her door slam further down the corridor. Not that closed doors have ever stopped him before. When he appears in her room she looks like she’s on the verge of tears.

“I understand what it’s like now.” She tells him. “Having powers that you can’t control. I can only imagine what it’s like for him, poor Ben.” She’s silent for a while and then she tells him “his address will be in Dad’s files somewhere, if you want to see him”.

*

The information he finds takes him to an address that's three hours away from The Academy and at least twenty miles from the nearest town. Five isn't sure what he was expecting but what he is presented with is a mid century farmhouse, obviously bought and paid for by Reginald. 

He knocks on the door gingerly then steps back, ready to teleport away if the situation is as dangerous as the others who have told him it would be. When the door opens the man who answers is unmistakably Ben. He's older, obviously, and he has deep, dark bags under his eyes but the grin his face breaks into when he looks down and sees Five is the most familiar thing in the world. 

"I _knew_ you'd come back" he breaths, and then envelopes Five in the biggest of hugs and Five can't help but fold into it. When Ben's pulls back he steps aside and gestures to the room behind him, "I assume you're coming in?"

While Ben himself looks worse for wear his house is immaculate, the wooden floor gleams and surfaces shine, Five almost feels compelled to take his shoes off. 

"Coffee?" Ben asks, and Five finds himself smiling that after all this time Ben still knows his drink preference. As Ben makes coffee he also makes small talk. 

"You look _exactly_ the same! How?" 

And Five gives him a brief time-travel-gone-wrong explanation while glossing over the apocalypse. 

They keep the vapid chat up until they're both sat on Ben's couch, coffees in hand. Then Ben sighs,

"I suppose you got my address from Dad, which means you've been to The Academy-"

"Dad died" Five tells him.

"Oh -" Ben's face falls, "I don't suppose I should have expected them to tell me… but you came anyway." 

"I wanted to see you" Five tells him. He doesn't say, 'because until two months ago you we're dead and I'm now the only one who knows it' instead he says

"What happened Ben? The others wouldn't say much." 

Instead of replying Ben places his coffee down and stands. He takes off the baggy hoddie he's wearing, exposing first his stomach and then his chest, or at least where his chest should be. 

In its place is an open wound, red and jagged at the edges but it's what's inside the wound that really draws the eye. There's tentacles, wrapping around Ben's heart and lungs, twisting between his ribcage, pulsating slightly, creeping out as they're exposed to the cool air. 

And under it all, is a mouth, a black void with row upon row of razor sharp teeth, lining the seemingly endless cavern. 

"Meet The Horror" Ben says.

*

When they were younger they'd thought that Ben’s power had been to manifest interdimensional tentacles out of his chest, four normally, and then attack people with them. Five can count a lot more than four now, and they’re not manifesting out of his chest, they are his chest. Five wonders if this means that The Horror had been growing inside him the whole time. Out of all of them Ben was the one who hated his power the most, he had to be asked to use it, forced sometimes. And the others had thought it was _cool,_ not grasping, or caring, how traumatising it must have been for a child to have something like that inside them, to kill people like that. 

One of the tentacles leaves Ben’s chest and snakes along towards Five, it caresses the hand holding the coffee cup. It makes Five’s arm tingle, he wants to put his drink down, examine it further. There’s strength to it, could easily break his fingers with a twist. There's a rumbling coming deep from Ben's chest, the tentacle strokes Five's wrist.

“No-” Ben says, like someone scolding a small child or a naughty puppy, he guides the tentacle back towards his body, lets it warp around his arm. He sighs and abruptly leaves the room.  
  
Five follows him to the kitchen where Ben is standing in front of one of two massive fridges. When he opens it it’s the smell that hits Five first. Meat on the turn. Stagnating blood. He gags a little at it. He thought he'd gotten used to the smell of death in the apocalypse, but it hits him here, contained, in this otherwise immaculate kitchen. A tentacle reaches out of Ben's chest and grabs what looks like a skinned rabbit from the top shelf of the fridge and brings it to The Horrors mouth. Two bites and it's gone. 

Five decides that he's going to think of Ben and The Horror as separate entities. It's obvious Ben does, because he closes the fridge with a wince and says "that should keep it quiet for a few hours.''

"Can I get you anything to eat?" He asks, then clarifies, "the other fridge has proper food in it."

Five shakes his head, if he was feeling hungry earlier he certainly isn't now. 

"That seems, acceptable." He says, gesturing at the meat fridge. He remembers Klaus' words _the problem with darling brother Ben is that he eats people._ Nothing in the fridge looked like it was a person, Five would say he's about ninety percent sure about that, it was all game, butchers counter steaks and something that looked suspiciously like road kill. 

"It works most of the time." Ben tells him, and doesn't elaborate. 

*

Five stays with Ben until late in the evening. They sit on his couch, legs crossed like teenagers at a sleepover and fill each other in on the missing decade or so. 

Five thinks it's only fair to tell Ben about the apocalypse, about leaving breakfast at thirteen and being stuck at the end of the world until his fifties. He tells him about finally averting doomsday but skips the fact that Vanya caused it and that he failed to stop it the first go around. He also still doesn't tell Ben that he was dead. 

In turn Ben doesn't tell him about the exact circumstances around his departure from The Academy. Instead he shows him around the farmhouse, an abandoned chicken coop in the grounds (“I thought it would be nice to have fresh eggs but it didn’t work out”) and the study where he works.

“All online, hardly ever need to meet people face to face, it’s perfect.”

It does sound perfect, but Five wonders if it doesn't get a bit lonely though, not as lonely as being the last man on earth for three decades, but lonely enough.

As he leaves, Five promises that he'll be back tomorrow, his ultimate goal, is, after all, to bring Ben home. 

*

There's no response when he knocks on the door, which is strange, because he told Ben he'd be there. There's no response when he teleports into the hallway either and calls out his name.

He finds himself feeling slightly worried, he's found himself worrying about his family a lot more than he used to, weirdly they're a lot easier to worry about now the world isn't ending. 

Five walks through the kitchen to the patio where be sees Ben, crouched, and what is very obviously a pair of legs next to him. Five knows that if he peers around Ben he’d be able to see the body they’re attached to but he doesn't. He has nothing against dead bodies, per say, but he’ll have as little to do with them as possible. 

Five clears his throat. 

When Ben turns it becomes clear that this actually is Not Ben. There is blood everywhere, staining his chest and arms, mixed with saliva that’s hanging in strings from The Horror’s mouth. What is most disturbing though, is that there is also blood surrounding Ben’s mouth. Five watches as Ben brings a hand to his mouth to wipe it clean and shudders when he licks his lips with a tentacle rather than a tongue that disappears back down his throat when he’s done. His eyes are dark, and full of none of the mirth he associates with Ben. 

“ _Oh Hello…”_

The Horror practically purrs at him.

_“It’s so nice you came to visit me, care to join?”_

A tentacle gestures at the unfortunate soul on the floor. 

“I came to see Ben. As he’s not currently here I’ll be leaving”. 

The Horror laughs, and it’s not the light laugh that was coming from Ben last night, it’s deep, guttural, unnerving. 

“ _Oh Baby, Ben’s right here.”_ _  
  
_

* _  
  
_

The worst thing is, and 'the worst thing' is pretty relative when it comes to your cannibalistic, previously deceased brother, is that what The Horror said was true. It's not like Ben checks out when The Horror comes out to play - Five had watched them interact last night - though they're separate entities, they're also intrinsically, terribly linked. 

'Tell Ben to come find me.' Five had told The Horror, giving it the address of the motel he was staying at and The Horror had honest to god pouted 

' _Oh you could stay…'_ it had whined ' _we'd have so much fun baby, it wouldn't hurt - that much.'_

Five had teleported out of there before his scientific curiosity got the better of him.

The thing is, Five knows what it's like to be a monster, more so than his siblings. He's killed people, indiscriminately, in cold blood, as a means to an end and well, what's eating people if not a means to an end? 

He sees why his siblings freaked out, exiled Ben, but since then Five himself has come back a killer, Luther's been transformed into half ape half man and Vanya's ended the world, twice. Ben deserves a second chance as much as the rest of them. 

*

He's woken up by a knock at the motel door not long after midnight. When he opens it Ben's standing there, looking exhausted and traumatised but luckily clean. 

"Takes a while to eat someone huh?" Five snarks, because it's midnight, and he's annoyingly was stuck with an adolescents sleep schedule. Ben's wince makes him regret saying it almost instantly. 

"I wasn't sure you'd want to see me."

Five sighs, teleports to the couch and pats the space next to him for Ben to sit down with him.

"I wouldn't have left you the address if I was trying to avoid you". He points out.

Ben rubs a hand across his face and sits next to Five, "yeah,that's what eventually convinced me to come." 

He sits in silence for a moment, and Five thinks about suggesting that Ben stays over, sleeps it off, and that they talk about it in the morning, but then Ben says,

"I'm sorry The Horror spoke to you like that, I'd never let it hurt you." 

Five glossed over it, because being called _Baby_ by the creature living in your brother's chest isn't something he doesn't quite know how to process yet, and Five is normally very good at processing. 

Instead he asks, "you can control it then? It doesn't just take over and attack indiscriminately?" 

"Mostly, it's easier if I don't let it get too hungry, obviously I wouldn't let it… I don't like… I wish it didn't…" Ben trails off. He swallows, restarts "It does what it needs to survive, and as it is me I've just got to go along with that." 

Five has so many questions he wants to ask? How much does The Horror need to eat to survive? Is it treating Ben's body like a parasite does a host or are the two genetically connect? Can Ben have conversations with it? 

Now is not the the time though. 

"Look do you want to take the bed and we'll talk more in the morning, you look worn out."

Ben glances longingly at the bed but then shakes his head. 

"I've got to get home, I've got a house to clean".

*

Five arrives at Ben's house late the next morning - he figures they both needed a rest - with breakfast and coffee for both of them. 

When Ben opens the door he looks soft and sleep rumpled and his smile when he sees Five is calm. This is not The Ben from last night, stressed and worried, nor is it The Horror, bloody and teasing Five. This is his brother Ben and Five feels an unfamiliar surge of warmth towards him. 

"We're going home". He says. 

"What?" Ben asks.

"We're going back to The Academy, tonight, me and you."

"I don't think the others would like that."

"I don't care what the others think." Five says, vehemently. The others didn't have to travel back to their childhood, pinpoint the exact moment their brother died and stop it from happening (it's annoying, but he has to thank The Commission for that particular set of skills). If they had maybe they'd get a say but as they didn't Five thinks he's well within his rights to bring Ben home. 

"Besides, I'm the oldest, so that's got to count for something." 

The discuss Five's plan while tearing apart croissants and sipping coffee. If they leave late that evening they should arrive back at The Academy when everyone else is in bed, which would give Ben time to settle in without protest. 

It's clear that part of Ben is nervous, but a larger part of him longs to go home, and probably has done since he was exiled. 

"I have to check out at the motel but I'll be back later to help you pack." Five tells him as he leaves. "You only need to bring essentials though, we've got The Academy feeling pretty homey and you're not too far away if you do forget something." 

*

They hit the road at nine, after cooking dinner together in Ben's bright clean kitchen, loading Ben's clothes into a suitcase, as much of the contents of the meat fridge as they can into a cool box, and both items into the boot of Five's car. 

"Don't you ever get pulled over?" Ben asks him and Five shakes his head. 

"You'd be surprised how unobservent some people are."

They drive as the radio flicks in and out of different stations, occasionally talking but otherwise sitting in comfortable silence. About an hour into the drive Ben falls asleep with his cheek against the window. He looks younger when he sleeps, and Five, who's really only just figuring out how to navigate being thirteen and thirty and fifty-eight finds it strange to watch Ben, who's gone from seventeen to dead to thirty in no time at all weirdly. Five doesn't pretend to understand how time works. He just likes playing with it. 

*

_"Hi baby"_

"Ben?"

_"Guess again- "_

They have about an hour left to drive when Five looks over at Ben to check he's still asleep and sees The Horror there instead. 

"What do you want?" He asks. 

The Horror raises a tentacle in front of its mouth in mock shock, _"that's not very polite."_

"Neither is disturbing me while I'm driving."

" _But you were talking to Ben"._ The Horror sounds offended and Five has to admit it kind of has a point. He sighs

"I'm sorry - did you want to talk."

The Horror shakes its head. _"I'm hungry."_

"There's food in the cool box."

" _That's boring though, I want something fun."_

"Well I can't help you with that."

 _"Oh but you can."_ There's a dangerous edge to its voice now, and Five realises in that second that he's driving along a deserted road with a monster in the passenger seat. 

He thinks The Horror realises it too. 

_"Be a doll and go back to that motel we passed, I can have some fun and you can get some rest. You look awfully tired baby."_

Five exhales through his nose. "We're going back to The Academy tonight, I'm not stopping".

" _Yes we are"._

There's an edge to The Horror's voice that he hasn't heard before, it's not teasing now. It's deadly serious and, before Five knows it's happening there's a thick tentacle wrapped around his throat, applying just enough pressure to hurt. 

Five places his foot a bit harder on the gas, watched the speedometer go up. 

"You know I can get out of this, I can be safe on the other side of the road and you'll be speeding along in a driverless car."

The Horror squeezes harder, Five starts to choke. 

" _So will Ben."_ It says " _and whatever it is you're hiding from him it means you won't just let him die. I know you don't care about me, hell_ I _don't care about me but we both care about Ben so pull over!"_

Five feels the edge of his vision start to darken and the push of energy that's telling him **get out of here now** , he thinks if The Horror pushes just a little harder he'll teleport instinctively and leave Ben to chance a flaming wreck. He switches down into a lower gear and makes a U-turn on the deserted road. 

" _Good boy"_ The Horror hums and the tentacle around Five's neck loosens and comes away, but not before caressing his cheek, soft as a kiss. 

*

Five doesn't wait up, but he's woken anyway by the key card clicking the lock of the motel room. 

He rolls to his side and half opens his eyes as The Horror re-enters the room. Ben would have snuck about, not wanting to wake Five because he knows how important sleep is, The Horror shows no such courtesy. 

" _Hi honey, I'm home"_ it calls. 

Ben's shirtless, and bloody, and Five knows that they'll have to leave early before the cleaners see the state they've left the room in. 

" _Oh I had a wonderful night, you should have joined me, you still could - midnight snack?"_

It enunciates the last three syllabus and emphasises the word snack, in a tone Five's heard Klaus use to describe himself and he thinks perhaps it's meant to be taken as some kind of cannibalistic compliment. He doesn't want to be thought of as a snack, in whatever way the words being used. 

"Clean yourself up and go to sleep". Five rolls over again to his back and closes his eyes, he falls asleep fast, considering what he's sharing a room with. 

*

"I kept telling Dad I didn't want to".

Ben tells Five as they drive the last stretch to The Academy. 

"He wouldn't listen, of course, he'd just say shit like _number six this is for the greater good_ but I knew how bad it was getting, I would feel it and I knew, when it got strong enough how bad it would be…"

He's looking out of the window, watching the road whiz passed rather than looking at Five. Five thinks this is because this is the kind of conversation that won't allow eye contact. 

"It needed to be stopped, and if stopping it meant stopping me oh well -" 

Ben hesitates.

"I tried, I almost - but it didn't work. And then it was too late and the others saw it, us, and that was that." 

Five thinks that maybe a part of him has always known what happened to Ben (in his reality). Dying on a mission is so, anticlimactic, and Reginald wouldn't have let that happen (look what he did to Luther after all) what Ben is saying now makes far more sense and he's surprised how much it breaks his heart. 

"Do you wish it had worked?" Five asks, he can't help himself. 

"God no!" Ben replies "We we're all fucked up at that age, how sad it would have been if that was it." 

Ben looks over and gives Five a small smile, Five smiles back. Ben doesn't need to know that there was a reality where he did succeed, that he had siblings that mourned him rather than rejected him. All he needs to know is the reality Five is crafting right now. And that it's going to be better. 

*

The plan had been to arrive at The Academy late, when everyone was in bed, and then deal with the inevitable fall out in the morning. 

Thanks to The Horror's need for an over night stop, however, when Five and Ben walk into the kitchen five sets of eyes fix on them and at least one hand reaches for a knife. 

"What the hell is he doing here?" Diego growls at them. 

Ben shrinks back a little. 

Luther stands, walks over to them and looks down at Five in a way that may not be intended as patronising but really fucking is. 

"Five, we took a vote, three to two,he can't be here. I know you weren't here for that but we need to keep The Academy safe."

Five glares at him.

"Well I'm using my vote now. Which makes it even. Ben stays."

Luther starts speaking again, saying something about how a tie doesn't mean anything but his words are drowned out by the shattering of a plate. 

"Ben?" Mom gasps, and then rushes over and wraps her arms around him. 

"Four Three." Five tells Luther smugly. 

*

After she's done fussing with his hair, and pointing out how tired and pale he looks, mom says "Ben, I made breakfast, bacon and eggs, I can put some on for you." 

"I'm vegan" Ben tells her awkwardly. 

Diego laughs out loud. 

"There's another book for you Vanya, 'My Brother : The Vegan Cannibal' ."

"Please don't call me that." 

"Gosh Diego, don't you know how contentious veganism is these days?" 

Klaus has swept himself to Ben's side and is slowly ushering him out of the room, hand on his shoulder, stupid grin on his face. 

"Look, before we do anything we need to clear your aura, it's very messy. Do you think you could eat people in a more tidy way?"

The rest of the conversation is obscured by the door closing but Ben's laugh echos down the corridor.

*

Of course it's not as simple as Ben walking down the corridor with Klaus and into happily ever after. In fact the tentative peace only lasts until dinner time and the tensions results in Klaus hovering above the dining table and throwing a bread roll at Luther before Five yells at them both to 'grow the fuck up.' Ben, for his part, looks like he wants the ground to open up and swallow him. 

"He's the one being a childish prick!" Klaus protests, lining up another roll. 

"I don't think questioning the return of a brother who literally _kills_ and _eats_ people is childish." Diego says. 

Klaus turns to Diego, readies the roll and then sees the knife by Diego's hand and wisely decides not to get into a throwing contest with him. 

Instead he says "oh, sorry, I forgot it was only acceptable to kill people if we didn't eat them afterwards". 

"We've all killed people." Vanya points out. 

" _I_ haven't" Allison protests, which turns the others frustration on her, causing Diego to mutter sarcastically 

"Didn't realise that you were the paradigm of morality in this family." 

Which in turn leads to Luther glaring at him, and looking like he'd probably try and punch him because anyone insulting Allison tends to have that reaction. 

Five feels sorry for Mom, and the reunion dinner she'd lovingly prepared. 

"Okay, let's talk about morality." Five interjects, using a voice which says 'i'm older than all you fuckers so shut up and put up'. 

"We kill people, it's what we do, and mostly we do it to help other people, because that's what dad taught us to do. Diego you've got the whole violent vigilante justice thing down to a T. You hurt people who hurt others, because _you've_ decided they deserve it. Would it matter if they got eaten." 

Diego glares, then shakes his head and stands. 

"Come on then Ben!"

Ben frowns but Diego continues to glare until he stands and follows him out of the room. 

It isn't the solution Five was after, he was merely suggesting Diego couldn't judge Ben when he himself killed people on the regular, not that Ben should tag along and eat the people Diego killed on the regular, but, he supposed, it is a solution. 

*

It takes a day for Ben and Diego to return and Five momentarily worries that maybe, in a universe where Ben's not dead, Diego has it in him to kill his brother. He makes a mental note to stop meddling with time and immediately deletes it when his brothers return. 

Ben has a black eye, Diego has a busted lip and both of them have huge grins on their faces. 

“You should have seen him!” Diego says to Klaus, “he was so badass. Like really gross, but badass!”

“If you’re converting my favourite brother to toxic masculinity I will not be impressed” Klaus responds and then drags the two of them down on the nearest sofa to wrap his arms around them and ruffle their hair. Neither of them protest too much. 

* 

Alison and Vanya, who Five has a feeling didn’t really have any qualms with Ben’s return are won over easily, Luther, on the other hand, spends the few weeks since Ben’s arrival purposefully avoiding him. If Ben’s in one room in the house, Luther makes sure he’s in a whole different wing. Family dinners are awkward but Luther protectively glaring and moodily stomping around the house is, Five thinks, a small price to pay for having his family whole again.  
  
He’ll come around eventually, probably via an Allison guilt trip. 

As it turns out though, a guilt trip isn’t needed. All that is needed is Ben, walking in after a night with Diego, shirt torn and exposing the cavity in his chest, and almost literally bumping into Luther. 

Luther takes one look at The Horror, looks back up at Ben with a look of, well, horror, and wraps his over muscled arms around him. Ben stands there awkwardly for a moment before Luther lets go.  
  
“Why didn’t you just tell me?” Luther asks, “You let me hate you but we’re the same, dad made monsters of both of us.”  
  
It’s on the nose, and far to cliche for Five but its progress. 

*

Five stands on the walkway over the hall and looks down at his family. They’d been being noisy and childish so he’d teleported up here to sip his drink in peace, but to still be a part of their fun. He’s moved by the scene, looking down at his brothers and sisters, his Mom, happy, looking like a real family. 

He notices Ben separate from the group and make his way up the stairs to join him. It’s not Ben who speaks to him when he draws level though. 

“ _I guess I should say thank you_ ” The Horror coos “ _look what you’ve done Baby, you’ve found us a family.”_

Five rolls his eyes, talking to the monster in his brothers chest has become a regular occurrence. He doesn’t think The Horror gets much of a chance at conversation, though Klaus has accepted ‘Ben plus’as he calls it, and Diego collectively refers to them as ‘the world's best crime fighting trio’, the rest of the family understandably haven’t quite got behind talking to the thing hijacking Ben’s vocal chords. Five, with his need to know exactly how The Horror works, and though he’d never admit it, the warmth he feels to the creature would never begrudge their little talks, however weird and perversely flirtatious their are. 

The Horror looks down at the group, mirroring Five’s gaze. 

“ _They’re wonderful_ \- “ It says “ _I promise I won’t eat them_.” 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> If you did like this, check out my other work for this fandom [ here ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20388130)


End file.
